{"id":659412,"date":"2026-04-02T19:45:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659412\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:45:06","slug":"pirates-konnor-griffin-jumps-to-nl-rookie-of-the-year-favorite-before-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659412\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates’ Konnor Griffin Jumps To NL Rookie Of The Year Favorite Before Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Konnor Griffin will join the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> for Friday’s home opener against the Baltimore Orioles. The betting market has big expectations for MLB’s top prospect.<\/p>\n

Ahead of his highly anticipated debut<\/a>, Griffin emerged as the favorite to win this year’s National League Rookie of the Year award on DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a>. The 19-year-old’s odds jumped to the top of a loaded class at +240.<\/p>\n

That’s an especially notable endorsement considering the competition. Griffin displaced Sal Stewart (+350) as the front-runner despite the Cincinnati Reds first baseman reaching base 16 times and tallying five extra-base hits in six games, including a standout series against Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Griffin also leaped ahead of St. Louis Cardinals shortstop JJ Wetherholt (+450) and starting pitchers Nolan McLean (+600) and Andrew Painter (+1100). Pirates hurler Bubba Chandler trails them at +2000 after working 4 1\/3 hitless innings in Tuesday’s win over the Reds.<\/p>\n

If he takes the field on Friday, Griffin will become the first teenager<\/a> this century to play within his MLB team’s first seven regular-season games. The shortstop hit .171 in spring training, but oddsmakers don’t appear too worried about early growing pains.<\/p>\n

After not making the Opening Day roster, Griffin quickly compelled the Pirates to reconsider by going 7-for-16 with five walks, three doubles and three stolen bases at Triple-A Indianapolis. That’s after soaring up the organization’s minor league ladder by batting .333 with 21 home runs and 65 steals across three levels last year.<\/p>\n

The Pirates will officially promote Griffin before Friday’s game against the Orioles, which starts at 4:12 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

More MLB:\u00a0Paul Skenes ‘Fired Up’ For Konnor Griffin’s Historic MLB Debut<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Konnor Griffin will join the Pittsburgh Pirates for Friday’s home opener against the Baltimore Orioles. The betting market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,4,10,776,64,4297],"class_list":{"0":"post-659412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-pirates","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","13":"tag-pittsburghpirates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116336835084734099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}